Sincerely, Helpful: Why HubSpot is Investing in Sigstr

I still remember how surprised I was the first time the HubSpot marketing team told me that our largest single source of net new leads — greater even than organic traffic or social media — was from email. It seemed counter-intuitive. How were we generating new leads from email when the people we were talking to were— by definition — already leads?

New leads by source, from May 2010 through August 2012. Leads from email are in orange, blue are “direct” leads, purple are imported, teal are social media, and green are from organic search.

Turns out that people were subscribing to our content, and then forwarding our emails around at a remarkable rate. We were getting access to leads that may never have converted through the traditional ad or search oriented marketing process. Moreover, leads from those shared emails turned into almost 4X the number of customers than from sources like organic search, social media, or PPC.

Despite perennial pronouncements on email’s demise, email is still a huge part of our lives. 86% of professionals prefer to use email when communicating for business purposes. I know that, personally, email is the first thing I check when I wake up in the morning (followed by Slack and then social media — in that order). It’s also where I spend a meaningful portion of my time every day.

While I engage with with newsletters I subscribe to — and definitely do get content forwarded to me — most of the email I get are still personal, 1:1 email from folks I’m working with inside and outside of HubSpot. Traditionally though, those emails completely lack the type of marketing optimized calls-to-action and rich content that generate the types of leads our marketing emails do.

One company has set out to change that.

I’m excited to announce that HubSpot has invested in Sigstr, a platform designed to help companies deliver marketing collateral through the email signatures of it’s employees.

Email signatures are a huge space. Every employee at your company should have one if you don’t. We also know it’s something much on the minds of marketers. As HubSpotterAnna Norregaard notes in her tweet:

This is a big space and a giant opportunity for Sigstr to help companies grow. Congratulations to the Sigstr team on the round. We’re excited to work with you and help deliver on your mission.